How to decorate and refresh without shopping

I love being creative-I quilt, I garden and cook, and I decorate. I love to change things around inside my home -a shelf or  a mantle might get cleaned off and a new collection of items put there to entice the eye and the brain.

As someone who loves living simply, I try to do this without following decorating trends or buying new things. If you can make your house a home even if there is not a lot of money, you are on a budget or just sick of shopping, are there any things you can do to decorate and refresh? 

Well the first thing I try to make myself do is just tidy up!

It always surprising how a clean floor and a bit of dusting and straightening makes everything feel calmer and nicer. The same goes for opening windows to let fresh air inside, and cleaning up pet clutter. The cat tray is a mega issue for my happiness unless it is fresh. I think Dora prefers it that way too! 

I am quite conscious of things which are out of place and find it hard to work or relax in cluttered spaces. This is not true of everyone who lives in my house, but as it bothers me they are usually pretty good at putting things away, and I reckon that if it bothers me and not them, it is up to me to fix it. 

Long time ago I found help from Flylady and her cleaning routines. I actually read her book which I got from the library! We were parents of young children and both had to work long hours. The house was so messy that when we had a break in and the police came, I had to say "No, they didn't trash the place, it always looks like this'. Embarrasing much? 

Flylady mottos and practices are still part of my life. A five minute pickup does make things better. Cleaning your sink and making your bed does calm the space and help you feel in control. "Focus makes you fabulous".  Lately I have found Dana K White's podcast "A Slob Comes Clean" is very useful too. 

Apart from tidying up, which has its own real and cheap magic to perform what can you do?

A LIST OF STRATEGIES

1. Instead of buying cut flowers

If you look at online decorators blogs you will find plants and flowers feature in the inspirational photos. Flowers cheer any space up, but there are only a few times when I am certainly going to spend $35 on a bunch of supermarket flowers. Instead I do the following things:

• bring in a pot plant for a few days -some of them stay if they like the space, others need a long time outside and a few days inside 

• cut some green leaves and stick them in a vase or jar or pot or anything. If you have only a few pieces, they can go in a tiny vase or an eggcup or a medicine bottle. 

• go for a walk and collect some sticks and dead branches or seed heads to spread on a shelf 

• Use local flowers, seeds and cones that you find in your garden. In Western Australia it is a crime to take these from the bush, but we can have lovely things at home in our garden, like this hardenbergia growing over a stump of a dead tree in my garden. 

• Make one or more crafted flowers-and have fun at the same time!

• raid the collection of fake flowers -do you have any? I keep some in the cupboard and mix them up with real leaves -they look more realistic that way. In my climate there are times when flowers are hard to come by in the garden- the height of summer, for example, when the heat browns everything off. Fake flowers or dried flowers can fill a gap -but I don't leave them out until they are dusty! A swish in warm water will revive silk ones, but dried ones need to be taken outside and given a shake. Moving them around makes them feel different too. 

• Use fruit instead. Bright lemons, green olives in a wooden bowl or basket, anything you have. 

2.  It is dark in here!

Natural light is one of those things that architects get good money for designing into a space. You can't do much if it is dark and dreary outside, or if your house faces to a blank wall, without expensive alterations. Here are some ideas which are cheaper than those major changes:

• Open the curtains or blinds to the maximum they will go. I am shocked how often people live without even noticing the free light which they could have if only they pushed everything up, away and against the wall. This might include re-arranging furniture to maximise the light from a window. If there is foliage in the way outside, time to prune it down! I don't like furniture to block natural light if it is at all possible to put it somewhere else. 

• Check where you can encourage light to bounce from outside to inside. We had a dark brown floor on our entry porch, but when we tiled it with left over white tiles, the afternoon sun bounced off the tiles, to the porch ceiling and into our dark loungeroom. It was also safer to come up to the house because the step was easier to see. A colourbond shed in the garden shines light into our kitchen and brightens things out there. 

• Mirrors can bounce light around -try putting one in a place where it can collect light from a nearby window and push it towards the dark space.

• Add table lamps -I often get mine from op shops or the tip shop. Maybe add a nice shade if it is worth it. Fitted with a LED globe they are cheap to run.

• Can you make a colour change to something lighter? Cushions, rugs and curtains are not too hard to move around and some of them can be home made too. They can brighten a space. 

3. I am bored and this place feels tired 

Sometimes I just need novelty! What I do then is fall back on the old 'move things around or shop at home" to make a tablescape. The above is one I made around Halloween -a book I already owned, a couple of lanterns from the garden, a  gargoyle from the op shop and some magpie feathers found in the park. Other ideas include- 

• move pictures from one room to another 
• move the furniture around 
• put music on, open the windows, light a candle
• Choose a theme land make a tiny vignette on a table or shelf. You don't need to wait for a large holiday -if you have a collection of woodland animals, or cats, or a stack of quilts- put them somewhere new and admire them again. 

• Cook something nice and make the house feel welcoming! 

FINALLY! 

Recently I wanted to do my refresh thing and came up with a theme of "Mad scientist's Victorian library". I already had leather lounge chairs, book cases, and a mantle piece with an old clock. I raided my collections for wooden boxes for the mantle and bottles that looks like I have been collecting nature specimens.

I cleared off the console and added beautiful books, a book stand and a globe which I found in an op shop. All of this makes me happy! 

I will probably change this around again soon. Maybe for Halloween? 

Hope you found this post helpful to inspire you to keep your place looking nice too. 

Day bed gets its first overnight occupant

We have an old 1970s house and so, among its 'features" is a nook in the lounge room which was designed to be a bar. Yes, really -a bar! Drink bottles and a counter and such I guess. 

Don't know if anyone ever used it as such. We are the third family to live here. We have used it as a computer area for a while, and then when we were given DH's dad's piano, it found its home here in the nook.

Now that the DS and the DDILaw have just built their dream home complete with  a Music Room so I felt it was time for the piano to go to a new home. The musician son and grand daughter will certainly appreciate it.

What should the nook in the lounge room now be used for?  Well, we gave it some thought. We have been using a folding bed in DH's study for when the grandchildren come for a sleepover, and I thought we could perhaps have a daybed in the nook for them to use. It should be easier for us, as there will be no dragging the folding bed in and out of the shed, to set it up each time. It should be more comfortable for them. 

Here is the daybed in situ. Getting it here required a number of steps:

1. Moving the piano -specialist removalists required

2. Cleaning the floor where the piano had been

3. Chucking out stuff and tidying bookshelves -this was quite an operation!

4. Finding the bed we liked and could afford, and ordering it

5. Buying an nice mattress. 

6. Buying new sheets and pillows

7. Building the bed after it was delivered. DH and DD made it together, even though DH is still recovering from his second Knee Replacement.

8. Making the bed and decorating with pillows and stuff

I must say, though, that it is a lovely thing to lie on with a book and a rug! It won't be just used for the guests. This is a lovely space. 

 

Our cat thinks it a bit nice, too.

This week it was school holidays and the DGson came for a sleepover. He announced next day that it was 'the best bed I have ever slept on!".

There is a bit of work left to do. Most of the pillows on the bed in the photo were pinched from other places in the house. I am recovering from bursitis, but gradually will be making new cushions for the bed, using pillows found in opshops, when the shoulder improves. 

We are happy with this new feature in our loungeroom. 

Verging on the verge -and other garden stuff

 A couple of years ago, listening to a permaculture podcast about water and soil, I thought "I have too much brick paving on this block".  It gets hot in summer, it is ugly, it offers nothing for biodiversity. Within days I was on my knees pulling up the brick paving on our verge. The neighbours thought I was insane!

I started stacking bricks up down the driveway. A few at a time, a couple of days a week. The stacks got higher and higher. What on earth was I going to do with them? Fortunately, my son and daughter in law wanted some brick paving at their place, so they took the bricks away and helped me get the last of them up. 

I didn't do much preparation for a garden, apart from spreading a couple of loads of mulch on the top of the compacted yellow sand below the brick paving. The soil was so compacted that I needed an auger to drill through it to start planting. Quite a few things died, but some of them lived and are now thriving. Several more loads of mulch have begun to get the soil organisms growing again. Gradually I realised that I needed to use a sprinkler one morning per week for 10 minutes to keep things alive over our summer. We have a challenging summer!

 The garden keeps growing, though, so when we did the Great Retaining Wall we had leftover rocks. Some of these were bordering the garden near the house, but They were pretty bad at retaining the soil which l fell out onto the path and they were uneven. As part of our retaining wall project, we pulled them up. 

I didn't want the rocks in the garden any more, so we advertised them as "Free" and pretty quickly they were snapped up by someone was happy to get them to use to build a waterfall at their place. 

DH then used the old concrete retaining wall blocks in the old retaining wall on our eastern boundary, and made this lovely wall under the grapevine out the front. 

More Plants!

Over the autumn our city council offered free native seedlings suitable for verge gardens. I got a pack of 10, and planted 9 - gave one away because it was a grevillea and I am allergic to them. They will help to fill up the spaces in the verge garden and will be habitat for wild birds and insects. I am eager to watch them grow now the rains have com. 

The verge still has one extra parking space for visitors. It is well known in the neighbourhood because this is where I put excess produce and people come and help themselves. The limes are followed by grapefruit and lemons and olives. 

On Mother's day I was given 5 kangaroo paws of various colours.  They should do well here, despite the harsh conditions. 

I am hoping to see a lot more pretty verges like this one in our suburb. Maybe this one can  be a bit of inspiration!

Autumn is here?

 We haven't had much to identify our weather as autumn yet. It has been so hot and dry! This week, though, the temperatures have taken a dive toward 'mild' instead of 'hot' and I am actually wearing jeans for the first time in 6 months. On the strength of this alone, I planted today some lovely native plants which were free from the City Council. I got the 'verge pack' and planted them to fill in gaps in the verge out the front. If it ever starts to rain, they will get a good start on growing before the next hot summer, but I am prepared to water them as necessary to get them started on life. 

I gave away a grevillea to a friend because they make me very itchy, but I have planted a prostrate banksia (Banksia petiolaris), Black Kennedia (Kennedia nigricans), Woolly netbush (Calothamnus Histutus), Grey Cottonheads (Conostylis Candicans), Emu Bush (Eremophila glabra), Cushion bush (Leucophyta brownii), Ground Banksia (Banksia blechnifolia),  and a Rose Banjine (Pimelia rosea).  

Last week we had a worker build us a new retaining wall across the whole of our eastern boundary. It was a job that needed doing for a long tim. It was a mixture of jarrah sleepers and concrete blocks but it was falling down! It is so nice now it is completed. I still have to get plants and reticulation sorted along this whole length though.  The good news is that the jasmine has survived both last year's new fence and this year's retaining wall builds, and has not skipped a beat. 

The citrus trees are now ripening so here we go again with our massive harvest!

The ruby grapefruit are so yummy as a breakfast juice. We feel very luxurious having this resource to use and share.

DH is going well after last year's knee replacement surgery. We even have managed a couple of gentle beach walks. He has signed up for his other knee to be done in June and hopes that, when recovered, we can do many more. 

This gorgeous Elna Automatic was given to me by a friend, whose mother got it from her sister. Both of these ladies are in their 90s! I took it along to a retired sewing machine mechanic for a service and he was very impressed with the quality of the engineering. It is a lovely machine, and the knee lever is a joy to use. I will gradually get more familiar with the machine and its wonderful selection of stitches.

Last weekend we opened our home for the third time as part of Australia's Sustainable House Open Day.  We showed 26 people over the house and garden in the course of the day, in four time slots.  They were very appreciative of us showing how we have adapted a 1970s home -such as the ones they live in- to be as sustainable as possible.

See all the houses which were open at https://sustainablehouseday.com/

Apart from all these things, we have been busy with grandparenting duties- our son and daughter in law have moved into a shiny new house and that is quite a bit of work, to get packed up and then start unpacking at the new place. 

A quilt finish, a new machine and more fixing things

When I wrote my last post about fixing things, DH had a plan on how to fix the pot plant stand which was buckling. I am happy to report that this circle of wood which he cut and fixed to the base is exactly the reinforcement it needed. 

I can now turn the ficus benjamina around towards the morning sun, to help it grow more branches and become less uneven in its growth habit. 

This week I dropped some things off at the op shop, and as usual went inside for a quick look. This original watercolour  (below) was in a broken frame and stuffed in a crate. I  saw it, loved it, and so bought it for $7 and another empty frame for $5. DH helped me trim the matt to size and installed some piano wire to the frame to hang it up.

We are both delighted with it. It would appear to have been painted in 1983. 

Some time back I decided that we would try to feature original art, or buy prints directly from the artist, but each art work had to cost less than $50. Since that time we have added some very lovely works to our home. 

My friend's elderly mother received this 1960 Elna from her sister. As she doesn't sew, my friend offered to find it a home, and thought of me! It works well but I need to get the wall plug rewired. I have downloaded the manual and so know where to give  it some oil. Stay tuned for how the project goes. 

Finally here is the 'forest floor' quilt I have just finished, using batik jelly roll fabric I was given by a friend. It got a bit sidelined over Christmas, but I am happy it is now complete. As my tshirt says "done is better than perfect". 

 

So that is all for this week. I hope you have some joy in fixing and finishing things too. 

How to be happy and frugal: Fix Things!

 If I think of the things which make me very happy the list is long, and one of them is absolutely the delight I feel when I fix something. The sense of achievement is a real ego booster. What was a problem has now been solved. The item is useful again. In turn this is a big money saver- as well as a way of preventing things going to landfill. I think this is compounded for me by the sense of agency- as a girl I was not expected to do more than cook or sew, but give me a drill and a hammer and I am powerful! 

For instance, today the youngest grandchild noticed letters in the letterbox, and wanted to get the key and get the letters. When you are 6 this is a grown up, independent and helpful thing to do.

 The problem was that the key would not turn in the lock. We knew it had been getting worse, but had  done nothing  about it but jiggle jiggle jiggle everytime we wanted the lock to turn. Today it was a serious problem for Mr 6, and today it took just a squirt with a can of silicone spray to lubricate the lock and make it good for another 6 months. At the same time DH sprayed the tracks in our outdoor blind and made them smooth and easy to use too.  

Some kind of hardware style lubricant is a good thing to have in any 'fix it' kit. Other items might be strong glues of various kinds, a screwdriver or two, some strong adhesive tape, a couple of permanent markers for covering scratches, maybe a clamp to hold broken pieces together as they cure. 

Do you have a fix it kit? I wonder what you would include in it? 

In our hot climate an automatic reticulation system is essential in a garden and because we have a drying climate we use drippers and microsprays. Sometimes these get clogged or broken and a plant will be struggling. Yet it is a task of just moments to replace the broken part and get everything working again. We keep reticulation parts for exactly that reason, in our shed. 

We use two clothes lines outside -the kind we call 'parallines"- a rectangle hung on a wall with lines of wire to hang the clothes on, making great use of limited space. Recently the most used one -up in the sunshine and the wind-had its wires fray and snap. I took a piece of it with me to the hardware store and found a replacement bundle of wire, then worked out how to re-string it again. Not difficult, but so practical and useful. 

I did the same with the lovely windchime which announces the arrival of our sea breeze. Recently it fell with a clang because the fishing wire which holds it up had broken. I found some galvanised wire in DH's shed and made it secure again. 

A common issue in households are things which use batteries, because they stop working when the battery has to be recharged or replaced. One very aggravating place to have battery failure is the computer wireless keyboard, because you can't do anything until you replace the battery -and the batteries for mine are AAA -the very small ones, not used for anything else around here. Other things in our house which use batteries are wall clocks, torches and hand held devices. If you have little children you may have night lights, toys and games which also need batteries. 

 We keep a selection of battery sizes on hand so we don't have to run to the shop at awkward moments to get a new battery. This is just a bit or regular household 'magic' that can de-stress an awkward moment and sometimes be a big thing. We recognised this week that our battery stash is a bit scattered. Maybe I should try to find a good receptical and bring them all together so that we don't do a mad scramble when something dies. Nearby could be a place to stash used batteries, so that I can take them for recycling (they should never go in landfill!).

One major cause of frustration is anything 'remote controlled' -including TVs, garage doors, etc.  Our CD player is used daily during our morning meditation, and has a remote control. Just replacing the battery gives a moment of joy when the click starts our Hilda of Bingen music.

DH keeps a pretty well resourced handyman shed. Now that his knee replacement is behind him, he is back to tinkering in the shed again. One of the projects on his bench at the moment is a wheeled plant pot stand. It got buckled because I put a heavy pot plant with a ficus benjamina in it on the stand but it was too heavy. I like to have wheels on that pot plant so I can turn it around and keep the tree symetrical as it responds to the light. DH is going to reinforce the pot stand with a scrap piece of wood so that it can be used again, and we don't need to buy a new stand. This will require a bit of nifty cutting with one of his favourite tools -the band saw. 

We keep warranties and ownership manuals in plastic pockets in a lever arch file. This has been invaluable. 

• Why is that light flashing on the induction stovetop? 
• How do I clean the exhaust fan over the stove? 
• Can I fix the dishwasher by buying a new part? 
• How do I program this new appliance?

 Lots of things can be solved by reading the manual. If you can't solve it sometimes you can find the address of the supplier/manufacturer and order a new part which will solve the problem. If you have bought an appliance second hand you can often get a manual online. I did this recently with my new-to-me icecream maker.

If not, there are many good videos on the internet which will show you how to fix a lot of things. 

Then of course there is the good old 'tie it up with wire' approach, time honoured in the song True Blue by John Williamson. The real masters of this approach are the stars of Bush Mechanics -a humorous TV show about First Nations people hacking cars in the outback to keep them functioning 'some how".  For these times, a creativity and a 'she'll be right' approach can be what is required. In the garden, my cable ties and bits of scrap wood  or tree branches can make a whole lot of useful shade in a temporary arrangement, like this I have made at the east end of a struggling garden bed, when I realised the hot morning sun was making the silverbeet struggle. I just cut a couple of branches of bamboo and cable tied them to the end of the bed. Instant shade! Not too dark, and no money required.

Then there are the things you might find in an op shop, or a skip, or offered for free from a neighbour. They might be a bit battered, or neglected or broken, but maybe you can fix them and get more life out of them? 

We bought a rather battered old dining table at the tip shop for about $10. DH thought it was 'good wood' underneath, and had an idea. He cut down the legs, sanded and smoothed the top, turned some of the boards around...and then we have this fabulous coffee table. He used a waxed finish, so that anytime its life has been a bit rough, we can get the wax furniture polish out and buff it up again. We both love it. 

We also try to keep a list of repairers and general 'fix it' helpers -the computer shop which is able to replace a mother board, the sewing machine mechanic who can source old parts, the 'guy up the road' with a history of fixing garden equipment, all sorts of helpers. In Australia if your spectacles are broken, you can take them to any optician and they will fix them on the spot, usually free of charge. These people are rare and valuable. 

Finally a thought from Brenna Quinlan, Permaculture illustrator and teacher

So, save money and be happy: Fix Things! 

Adventures in Second Hand purchasing

 If we are to live more sustainably on this One Planet Earth we all share, it is pretty clear that we in the industrialised and wealthy countries need to reduce our consumption. One of the ways I try to do this is by choosing to purchase things second hand rather than new, wherever possible.

When we buy second hand, we keep things from landfill, we dampen the demand for manufacturers to make new things all the time, and as a by-product we save money. I try to always look for anything I need first in the free or second hand space, before buying new. 

A picture of our veggie garden and fruit trees

As I try to limit my exposure to all kinds of advertising, I generally have identified an actual need or a sensible 'want' before I go out to look for a product. This month I have been aware of the fact that I have a LOT of last year's citrus harvest in the freezer, and it wasn't moving fast enough into our meals. I need to move it through the freezer to keep the rotation going and have room for other things. Then it occurred to me that I could make sorbet or gelato or icecream and use up the juice that way. That meant finding an icecream maker!*

The ice cream maker I bought second hand

As it happens, ice cream makers are just the kind of appliance to be often available in the second hand market. People buy them with all sorts of aspirations, and then don't make a habit of using them much. At some point it is just an appliance taking up valuable real estate in their kitchen and in their freezer. 

I found a good brand ice cream maker for about one third of the price of a new one. If it should happen that I don't use the machine as much as I think I would, then I have not been much out of pocket. 

Lemon cake with lemon icing on 

a second hand cake stand, plate and glass cover

In order to make room for the icecream maker in the cupboards in the kitchen, we advertised our dehydrator on our local Buy Nothing group. We have realised that in this climate we don't really need a dehydrator. Firstly, most herbs grow all year round, and fresh herbs are usually more flavourful. Secondly, we have a LOT of dry sunny days, and anything we needed to dry could simply be hung somewhere shady and a day or so later it would be crisp. We are happy to let someone else have the dehydrator- we got it for free, so we passed it on for free too. 

So I looked on line in a popular marketplace and found a suitable machine. Sadly, after I got it home I discovered it had a piece missing. The seller didn't have the piece, and offered to reduce the price if I could find a replacement piece from the manufacturer. The manufacturer was not helpful -they said they had a backlog and would take 8-10 working days to get back to me! Hmmm.

I got my money back from the first seller, and checked if I could find a similar machine new in a shop Just as I  was reconciled to this, another machine of exactly the same type as the first one, turned up for sale -and for $10 less! Off I went again and this time all the pieces are there. 

The first Icecream I made is from Stephanie Alexander's book 
The Kitchen Companion" : lime icecream. It was extremely nice, and worth taking to dinner on Friday when our Friday friends group gets back together after a month recess over the Christmas and New Year period. 

I have been reading over the summer period. One of the books I enjoyed from the library was Kate Rawles's story of riding a bike around South America and visiting both biodiversity hot spots and places in trouble, and the people trying to heal the land and change the system.

Everything is connected, they say. One mine, one extinction, is felt everywhere and by everything. Just doing things like taking the trouble to buy second hand or fix something rather than throwing it away, is a tiny act of restoration and rebellion against the forces that will destroy everything we hold dear. 

* Of course, citrus is not just used in icecream. I have been using lemons instead of stuffing in a roast chicken, for a long time. I also use lemon and lime juice in salad dressings, risotto and just flavouring iced water for long summer drinks. The DH makes marmalade from many citrus varieties too. Cakes can be great with citrus.

If you have as many trees as I have, there is a big need to find uses for citrus- even after giving many of the fruit away there is still a lot left.